Having been initially praised for his no-holds-barred savaging of the lack of ethnic diversity, the entertainer faced a backlash on Monday over one joke in Sunday’s ceremony that used young children and repeated widespread stereotypes about Asians.

Critics on social media hit out after Rock launched a sketch that depicted the finance company PricewaterhouseCoopers sending bankers to the show - before introducing three small children, one of whom was so young that he was confused about where to stand on the stage.

The joke appeared to target the prodigious mathematical talent popularly ascribed to Asian children.

“If anybody’s upset about that joke, just tweet about it on your phone that was also made by these kids,” Rock then said in comments that some saw a compounding the initial offence by repeating a trope about Asian children being used as child labour.

Chris Rock on stage with the three children (Rex)

The sketch provoked a reaction on Twitter, with one user tweeting: “Think my brain shut down for a few minutes. Did that appalling joke about Asian kids actually happen.”

Think my brain shut down for a few minutes. Did that appalling joke about Asian kids actually happen? #Oscars

There was also criticism that Rock’s blistering performance focused almost entirely on the exclusion of black actors and directors as nominees while ignoring complaints - backed up by recent studies - that Latinos and Hispanics, as well as Asians, are similarly under-represented.

There was a lack of diversity in the lack of diversity. This became most apparent when Rock brought three Asian... https://t.co/w4czANSvjq

"I was shocked that Latinos and Asians and Native Americans were not a part of this conversation," Felix Sanchez, chairman and co-founder of the Washington-based National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, told AP. "They have this idea that the paradigm is still black-white and they need to expand the conversation. That it was so narrow is indefensible.”

the joke about the Asian kids would've stung less if there were more Asians on stage tonight

Even some African-American commentators were unimpressed with parts of Rock’s portrayal of blacks’ conditions in contemporary US life, particularly his assertion that they did not complain about white-only Oscar nominees in the 1960s because “we had real things to protest at the time”.

Chris Rock on stage during the Academy Awards (Getty)

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Dexter Thomas said the joke effectively let Hollywood bosses - whom Rock labelled “sorority racists” - off the hook, while overlooking the fact that blacks actually had protested against an all-white nominee list in 1962.

“The most unfortunate thing about this joke isn't that it ignored the fact that we still have ‘real things to protest’,” wrote Mr Thomas. “It's that a lot of ‘sorority racists’ who needed to hear Rock's full message won't remember anything but that bit, because it's convenient for them.”